Eva Jaber ‘28 (she/her) is a prospective English or international relations major. She is a member of the Cleftomaniacs, an a cappella group, an ESL tutor and hopes to encourage peace-minded advocacy on campus. Contact her at ehjaber@wm.edu.
I am green, gold and grateful today! Does that sentence sound familiar? Maybe because that’s how I started my most recent LinkedIn post. If you already knew that, I love you. For those who didn’t recognize it, you’re either new here (welcome!), or you’re not on that LinkedIn grind yet. Let me get you both up to speed.
Seeing as it’s a new school year, allow me to reintroduce myself. I’m Eva, and this is my satire advice column. Did you miss me? The question this week is as follows:
“Hi Eva! Two questions: how was your summer, and how do I become a LinkedIn warrior?”
What an exemplary inquiry. Your question has given me my stage, and I’m ready to sparkle.
I’ll start by talking about my summer. Observe how the question asked how my summer was, but not what I did. This question-asker is an empath. We are not our achievements. We are not our accolades. We are our attitudes. I will thus answer this question with a limerick, which some say is the most emotionally vulnerable poetic structure, about a formative moment this summer.
A gecko broke into my place
There’s terror all over my face
Brought him out to the hall,
But then BAM on my wall
There’s a second one poised for the chase.
A picture is worth a thousand words; but, with words, I just painted you a picture. What’s that worth, then? Like a million words? More, even? Anyway, if you actually want to know what I did this summer, you can look at my LinkedIn. FIRST SEGUE OF THE SEMESTER!!! This brings me to your second question.
So you want to become a LinkedIn warrior? A year ago, I had that same goal in mind. I put my heart and soul into it and made it happen. I have a foolproof five step plan for you, and if you follow this very closely, you will be successful. But you have to be willing to sacrifice.
1) Your LinkedIn background photo needs to turn heads. Your profile photo doesn’t matter nearly as much as the canvas it’s painted on. Imagine your smiling face resting upon a backdrop of ferrets dressed in tuxedos (classy) or you biting into a wax candle (intimidating). For example, my LinkedIn background photo is me walking across the Crim Dell Bridge by myself. You mean she’s going to be alone forever? No, dear reader. It shows that I am destined to be a successful solo entrepreneur. Just me, myself and moolah. Shark Tank, here I come.
2) Be prepared to lose everything. LinkedIn has everything you need to be happy. If your friends don’t have a LinkedIn, they are no longer worth your time. Anyone who won’t make an account to help you grow your network literally hates you. They say to keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer. I’m revising the proverb. Keep your connections close and manipulate everyone else without regard to their goals, aspirations and feelings. Nothing more to say. Moving on.
3) Get to 500+ connections as quickly as possible. You see, on LinkedIn, your connections counter stops at 500. Whether I have 501 or a bajillion connections, it’ll always say 500+ under my name. You have to get to 500+ by any means necessary. Last year, I looked up every RSVP from the Evite list for my aunt’s birthday party on LinkedIn so I could hold attendees accountable face to face if they had not yet accepted my connection request. The road to 500+ is a long, steep and winding one. If you have to burn some bridges to get where you need to go, be assured that the view from the top is well worth it. Any. Means. Necessary.
4) You are no longer allowed to read my column unless you connect with me on LinkedIn (observe this prime example of a go-getter mindset). “How could she enforce that,” you ask? “Well, I don’t even like her writing that much anyway,” you say. To that, one might reply that you should be careful about messing with them because they have friends in high places. I, on the other hand, am not going to go there. Because I am the friend in high places. I have 500+ connections, a vast LinkedIn network of friends and colleagues that I can utilize to exact revenge on any readers who choose not to enter into this mutually beneficial agreement. Maybe you weren’t aware that The Flat Hat is a subscription model. It is, though, and this is how you pay your dues.
5) You need to generate traction. To reach LinkedIn stardom, you can’t just be posting on your own page. Other people need to be posting about you too. How do you make that happen? Become the co-host of a chicken-related celebrity interview show. We have “Hot Ones” to test spice tolerance and “Chicken Shop Date” to show off social skills, but there is still room in the market for more. Allow me to present… “ChickIn,” a new show where celebrities fill their pockets with corn and then sit for a job interview with the objective of both landing the job and also protecting the pocket corn from hordes of live chickens being progressively released into the room throughout the episode. I’m looking for a co-host, my partner in crime. People will be posting about our creativity and on-screen charm. Connection requests will flood in by the thousands. If interested, please dm me on LinkedIn.
If you’ve made it this far, that’s cause for celebration, and I never show up to a function empty handed. My gift to you is a nugget of sincerity in this sea of satire, a “Love is Blind: Habibi” in the Netflix queue of life. I want to take a moment to reflect on the fact that there’s so much to be green, gold and grateful for (e.g. me). Whether you’re new to the College of William and Mary or returning, you all have an opinions columnist to worship look up to. Let’s put this gratitude to work, shall we? Make sure you read up on all the past issues to practice your advice absorption, and maybe try dropping my new catch phrase, “green, gold and grateful,” a couple times an hour in conversations, essays, job interviews or really anywhere you can spread my wisdom and whimsy.
Sound good? Okie dokie. I’ll see you in two weeks.
#greengoldandgrateful #opentowork
